Currently we are trying to locate clandestine (illegal) water connections by acoustic location of plastic pipes in Moquegua (Peru). Are there any known experiences of this kind ?
Article Detección de conexiones clandestinas de agua potable con mét...
Hi Stephan,
there is some experience with acoustic techniques in this field. However, they don't work in all cases and certainly don't give a very large coverage. What seems to work quite efficient is the use of distributed temperature sensing, you can find a few publications on these techniques. Recently a quit comprehensive overview article was published on leakage detection, also covering issues related to miss connections: see attached file.
best regards
Francois Clemens
Hello,
Depending on the depth as well as clay content, ground-penetrating radar (radar) might be a method that yields more robust results. That is if these pipes are located beneath soil. If they are within rocks or structures, electrical resistivity (ER) may be helpful although the resolution is not as great. With GPR the higher the frequency, the better the resolution but there is a proportional loss with depth.
If this involves water columns then yes acoustic is your best... the higher the frequency the better the resolution from what I understand. The position of the transducers (if that's what you are using) is pretty important too. My Master's advisor talked to us about modeling an acoustic survey of a lake bottom. This article deals with something similar. Hope this helps...
Best,
Steve Fitzpatrick
We actually tried succesfully the acustic COMBIPHON system. My paper about the acoustic detection of buried pipes, including ilegal connections was just published (only in spanish): https://www.researchgate.net/publication/316453899_Deteccion_de_conexiones_clandestinas_de_agua_potable_con_metodos_acusticos_-_un_nuevo_metodo_y_su_aplicacion_en_campo_Detection_of_drinking_water_clandestine_connections_with_acustic_methods_-_a_new_m
Article Detección de conexiones clandestinas de agua potable con mét...
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